This is a great day for us! Webtrends recently acquired Reinvigorate which is a simple, real-time web analytics and heatmaps product. You can learn all about the acquisition details here.

I wrote an article on the Webtrends Blog that walks through how easy it is to sign up and install the product and we are officially using it on this website! Let us know if you are interested in learning more! We would love to talk.

There is an upcoming webinar that will cover the details of the product that is worth checking out. Click here to sign up.

The Fortune 100 saw an average drop in website traffic of 23.02%

Top brands have a bigger Facebook audience than their main websites

Social commerce projected to be a $30 billion industry by 2015

Download the report

You can get a copy of the report here

This is an older article posted by Web Hosting Secrets Revealed that showcases 30 free tools to speed up your creative development cycle.

Not going to lie, I have been using about 10 of these for a couple of years now. Namely Stripe Generator and FavIcon Generator. To this day I still have no idea how to create an .ico file from scratch. It’s probably not that hard but why learn when you have free tools?!?! I mean right?! Kind of like not learning to spell since we have spellchekkers.

Why You Should Care

The Webtrends Apps platform is all about speeding up your creative dev cycle. Our tool makes it extremely easy to piece together a social or mobile App and when you combine that with some of these free automated creative tools you can dress up your App and iterate in no time.

Work smarter. Not harder. Duh.

The Quick List

Naturally you can check out the article to get a summary on each tool but here is a list of links in case you want to jump off right away.

• Quick Ribbon: Online Ribbon Generator Tool
• Tabs Generator: Navigation Tab Menu Generator
• Empty bottle: Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator
• Unique: Custom Character Generator
• Stripe Generator: Stripes Background Designer
• Web 2.0 Badge Generator
• Fresh Generator: Web 2.0 boxes made easy
• Load Info: Gif Loader Generator
• Dynamic Drive: FavIcon Generator
• Button Maker
• Ajax Loader Generator
• RoundedCornr: Rounded Corner and Gradient Generator
• 3D-Box Maker
• Web2.0: Logo Creatr
• Cool Text: Logo and Graphics Generator
• Free Footer: Page Validation
• Theme Roller: jQuery UI Library
• jQuery Function Builder
• Tartan Designer: Tartan Generator
• Color Wizard: Color Scheme Generator
• Color Scheme Designer
• Post-It Note Generator
• Favicon Icon Generator
• GRSites: Texture Maker
• Favicon.ico Generator
• Web 2.0 Logo Creator
• Textorizer: Vectorize a picture using text strings
• Buttonator
• Multicolr Search Lab
• Background Patterns Maker

Now go! Create! If you know of more, please add a comment to make this an even bigger tower of terror.

RECORDED WEBINAR LINK COMING SOON +

In this webinar we decided to look at the following stages of a successful Facebook App:

• Define: Goal Setting + Measurement
• Design: Messaging + Creative
• Conquer: Deployment + Iteration

We were fortunate enough to showcase a Heineken Sweepstakes App that was done by one of our favorite Agency partners, The Arts Fund, using the Webtrends Apps Builder. We have been told by The Arts Fund that this was a very successful App for the Heineken brand so it was awesome that they let us showcase it.

Define: Goal Setting + Measurement

Before you start building you need to look at what you are trying to achieve. Once you have set your goals, then look at the App builder and take note of all the elements involved in the process before you start designing.

Examples of some common goals to measure against:

• Likes
• Shares
• Comments
• Form Submissions – I.e. Sweepstakes, Newsletter, Etc.
• Impressions
• Transactions
• Conversions outside of Facebook
• Overall brand awareness and Proof of Concept

Design: Messaging + Creative

Since the App lives on a single tab within the Facebook page you have to make it very clear on what you are trying to get the user to do and what they will get in return for doing it. If you decide to use a “like” gate you might want to consider using arrows to entice people to click “like”.

Things to keep in mind while creating the App:

• Establishing your requirements – what are the elements within the specific App you are using?
• Be smart in guiding people around the Facebook page.
• QA your copy. Have someone that fits in your targeted demographic review and give feedback.
• Be smart with your design. A lot of copy can be baked into the design.
• Big call to actions buttons! Make it fun!
• Disclose all needed information. Don’t make people wonder.

Conquer: Deployment + Iteration

Engagement typically falls off between 12 – 15 days so this means you have a window of opportunity to maximize your App investment. In some cases this window is irrelevant but there are some things you can pay attention to once you have deployed your App to gain traction and interest.

• Start by reaching out to your existing fan base
• Target users profiles based on their interests and activity to serve them Ads promoting your App
• Create ways to encourage more shares on Sweepstakes. I.e. Scaling prizes
• Watch your metrics to see if there are any significant drop offs
• If engagement is low all around then try iterating your creative

If you have any questions or would like to schedule a demo, please let us know. This article and webinar is only a small portion of the wonderful things we can talk about and deliver on.

Cheers! – Mr. Diggles

With the latest release of Webtrends Analytics, we have now added the ability to compare profiles to each other in the web dashboard app, Insight. While the change in the interface is subtle, this is HUGE!

It’s helpful to understand a little about custom profiles, which is one of the most powerful (if hidden) features of Webtrends Analytics.

For basic Webtrends usage, a profile is simply the collection of report data for the item being tracked, like a website or a mobile app. But profiles can go much further. With Webtrends Analytics, you can create profiles for a specific segment of users, specific content, a rollup of many profiles, etc. There really is no limit to the creativity around profile creation. Once you get the hang of it, Webtrends Analytics becomes a very powerful tool in your toolbox.

Here’s how it works.

In Insight, click the new Custom button in the date range options (this was a calendar icon previously).

You’ll notice that above the compare calendar, there is a new profile dropdown. It defaults to say, “Current Profile” but you can change it to whatever profile you’d like. Once you make your selection, you are in Profile Compare mode. Below are just six examples of how you could leverage the power of Profile Compare.

Example 1. Web App vs Mobile App
In this example, ACME Industries is comparing their ACME Widget web app to their ACME Widget iPhone app, using Webtrends Mobile Analytics. You’ll notice that on some weekends, during the dips, the iPhone app gains more usage than the web app. Profile compare makes this easy to spot.

Example 2. All Traffic vs Customer Traffic Only
With Webtrends, you can easily create profiles that exclude any internal traffic from your own company and performance monitoring services. This traffic can inflate actual traffic and wreak havoc on calculated metrics which rely on visitor traffic counts. With Profile Compare, you can actually see the difference between Total Traffic and Traffic from customers only. In this example with ACME, internal and monitoring activity is accounting for a 23% increase in Page Views and a 15% jump in new visitors.

Example 3. Comparing two Web Apps
ACME has two different web apps, one is their Widget app and the other is their Gadget app. With profile compare, it is easy to see the discrepancy in activity between the two. With most of the key metrics, the Widget app surges past the Gadget app, but the Gadget app actually exceeds the Widget app when it comes to Average Visitors per Day and New Visitors. This might not be that obvious without Profile Compare.

Example 4. Blog vs Facebook
Webtrends profiles are also used to capture Facebook measurement with Webtrends Facebook Analytics. With Profile Compare, you can now compare your other properties with Facebook performance and activity. In this example, ACME’s blog is being compared to a Facebook contest created with Webtrends Apps. You’ll notice that even though the traffic of the blog outperforms the Facebook contest, the bounce rate and page views per visit are much better with the Facebook contest.

Example 5. Comparing Content Profiles
Many customers prefer creating profiles for sections of a website. This makes it easy for different teams responsible for different parts of the website to monitor their activity. In this example, ACME has created two profiles, one for the product pages on the site and one for the support pages. With profile compare, it now make it easy to bring these profiles together and spot both the differences and similarities.

Example 6. Compare Everywhere
The examples above focused on the key metrics dashboard view. However, the power of Profile Compare doesn’t stop there. It is available on every metric within every report in Insight. The above example is a Mobile Devices report. With Profile Compare, it is now easy to spot that twice as many visits to the product pages over the support pages are from Apple iOS devices and that seven times as many visits are from devices using Opera Mini.

If you are a current OnDemand Webtrends customer, I encourage you to go try Profile Compare today. If you have more than one profile setup, and most of our customers do, you’ll find it very powerful.

If you are not currently a Webtrends customer and you feel you are missing the benefits that this feature would provide, contact us today.

[This article was originally published in Social Beat on November 12th. Facebook Messages was announced yesterday amids assertions this isn't just email “This is a messaging system that includes email as one part of it.” Zuckerberg said - Ed.]

What’s the difference between Facebook and the AOL of old? On Monday, Facebook is expected to announce that they are adding true email functionality, and users will be able to send emails to @facebook.com addresses, as well as use software clients like Outlook and Thunderbird to read and send emails. With the introduction of email, Facebook has now completely replicated the features of AOL’s 1990s-era desktop client. Both offer messaging, profiles, profile names, chat, pictures, groups, games, and news, and thrived on the simple promise of connecting you with your friends.

So just how similar are they?

AOL, the fabled “walled garden” of mediocrity, was hugely popular before the broad popularity of the wild, unkempt Internet intervened. AOL offered everything a user could want in a nice, consistent interface, and @aol.com email accounts persist to this day. Facebook has long offered simple messaging between users on its website, and has become a popular way for users, especially younger ones, to send messages to each other as casual acquaintances change jobs and email addresses over the years.

There was a time when TV and billboard ads showcased AOL keywords for brands, just as Facebook page URLs are showcased today. And Facebook extracts significant revenues from brands for premium advertising. Placement on the AOL homepage cost a huge sum, just like prime placement on Facebook does. Setting up a brand page on AOL cost a large monthly stipend. And while a brand can set up a basic presence for free on Facebook, the social network mandates minimum ad buys in order to offer promotions.

Your mom is on it

Facebook is a nice, safe Internet alternative where developers, users, and brands all have to play nice or get punted. There is no porn, spam, or hate groups. That, too, was AOL’s value proposition: a clean, well-lighted place online. Since Facebook opened up to all users in 2006, AOL’s army of moms has been migrating to Facebook in droves — and friending their kids.

Mass-market mediocrity

With 500 million users and a something-for-everyone menu of features, can Facebook escape the mediocrity of Web portals like AOL and Yahoo, whose @yahoo.com addresses are as tired as @aol.com addresses? Uninspired features like Facebook Groups and Facebook Places don’t bode well for the site.

Yet Facebook has made a very significant, brilliant shift from its “homepage to the world” predecessors: allowing other sites to connect. With the introduction earlier this year of the Facebook Open Graph and Social Plugins, any website can augment itself with Facebook’s social features, and it is expected that sites will be soon be able to include Facebook’s highly targeted and lucrative ads.

Perhaps @facebook.com email addresses will end up looking as lame as @aol.com in a few years. But Facebook has far more going for it than its website. By spreading its roots throughout the open Web, Facebook won’t have to worry about the state of its own garden.

At today’s Facebook press event, Zuckerberg announced several changes coming to the site and two of them have big implications for marketers.

Groups and Pages no longer feel like confusing clones

I have heard many a marketer wonder whether or not they should start a group or a fan page as their hub for their Facebook presence. I’ve pointed many people to resources that explain the advantages of Pages over Groups, but they looked so dang similar that it often felt like splitting hairs. A while back Facebook announced that they were going to get rid of Groups, but then later changed their mind in favor of overhauling them. Well now they have.

Groups are now designed to be what their name implies, a group of your contacts that you want to have a more focused interaction with. Here’s a quick video explaining how the new Groups work.

Groups are now private by default. They don’t appear to offer custom tabs they way fan pages do. Groups offer the ability to have group chat sessions. They also offer collaboration features now like the ability to work on shared documents. Those are very distinctive features now from fan Pages that makes it clearer for brands to decide which type of space to use for public marketing and which to use for collaboration or narrow messaging.

Apps privacy dashboard update

Privacy and user trust are critical issues that surround Apps on Facebook. Today Facebook made an important step toward building more user trust in Apps by giving the user more control and visibility over Apps accessing their data. Users can now view the permissions they have granted to Apps in the same screen that lists their authorized Apps, which makes it easier to manage. They can also now revoke email access independently of deauthorizing the app. And a huge step in transparency, users can see what data Apps access about them and when. Here’s a video that explains it further:

These progressive moves give users more control over their data privacy. It should make people feel safer and more likely to grant permissions to apps for accessing their profile data. Obviously this is great news for users, but it’s also good for marketers because trust built on transparency should increase app adoption and fuel responsible use of profile data for serving customers.

It’s Wednesday afternoon and Media Post’s Social Media Insider’s Summit has just come to a close. As I sit next to the pool typing up my wrap up notes, I feel invigorated from the past four days of events. Hats off to Media Post for doing an excellent job organizing the conference and attracting a high caliber group of people. I enjoyed the quality of sessions and networking. In short, it was a great conference.

I tweeted many of the things that struck me during the conference and I’ve embedded my favorite tweets and retweets later in this post. From a high level, one thing that made this conference unique was the mix between approaches to social media marketing. Discussion covered acquisition, direct, and transactional marketing with a touch of retention. A few themes emerged for me as the most thought-provoking:

Direct marketing vs. PR

One thing that became obvious to me was the difference in approaches between direct marketers and the PR/community folks. Many of the direct marketers had email marketing backgrounds and they brought that experience forward into social. It’s a somewhat controversial view to the PR/community focused practitioners, because it’s seen as violating the spirit of social media. Personally, I think social media is ripe with consumers with intent to buy, which makes direct marketing principles appropriate. I also think there are many people using social media with no intent to buy and even wanting to be left alone. In my opinion, direct marketing tactics that respect consumer engagement preferences in social media are going to be what unlocks the budgets for social media marketing.

Earned media and engagement

I’ve been thinking about earned media and engagement quite a bit lately, so I’m hyper aware of discussion about this theme. Lots of discussion focused on how earned media works, how to measure it, and what are the pitfalls from pursuing it. Engagement also came up quite a bit. While the subject may feel tired to some, the reality is that engagement is something that social media brought to the online experience that was new. Understanding what value it has for businesses and how to encourage more value from it are going to be hot topics for the foreseeable future. In fact, this one inspired me to write a whole post dedicated to it. Stay tuned!

Monitoring, mining, and measurement

Rob Key, CEO of Converseon, had some gold in his presentation. I would have liked to see him get more time to share. A while back, I had a Twitter discussion with Anna O’Brien about the distinction between social media monitoring and social media measurement. Rob made me clear about the difference between monitoring and mining. Social mining is an analyst task focused on studying historical data for lessons to apply in the future. Monitoring is the practice of watching news streams in or near real-time in order to save and/or respond. Measurement is tracking the events that occur on and off of your properties that represents the history of interaction. Monitoring, mining, and measurement are all valuable and distinct practices; each valuable to businesses.

Crisis management

In several of the sessions the idea of crisis management came up. Much of the discussion centered around validating that it happens and it can seriously impact your business. A few people touched on what to do about it, but Anna Banks from Organic had the best tips for outlining how companies can prepare for a social media backlash before it happens. The points I could capture are in my tweets below.

Consumer insight

One of the big surprises of the conference was the student panel by Michelle Prieb from Ball State University. Michelle lead a panel of local college students through an insightful discussing about their experiences of using social media. This is one place where the audience really shined from the questions that were asked. One woman had particularly good questions about what engagement tactics felt uninteresting, creepy, or desirable. I recorded many of those insights below in my tweets. I’m now more interested in what Ball State and the Center for Media Design are up to. I encourage you to check out them and their research.

Roundtables and questions

Not only were the speakers fantastic, but the attendees also made the conference an educational and provocative event. From great questions to engrossing roundtables, the event really felt like it was filled with industry insider’s. I made several connections with people who I know I’ll have some meaningful follow ups and friendships. High marks here again.

Tweets

The following is a selection of my Tweets and retweets from the conference. You can find more tweets with the hashtag #mpsmis.

In addition to determining destiny, there were boat rides. And rumored strange tweets from the buffet tables.

Doug Madey and I attended the conference. Here are some of the highlights from our Twitter feeds:

Who are you?
A big underlying theme at the conference — and in mobile in general — is the same old question, “Who is the mobile consumer?” Eric Bader, the Chief Strategy Officer at Initiative Worldwide, says mobile needs to remember that the consumers are mobile, not just the device, technology and platform. It’s about the people!

And these people mostly want to use their mobile phone to help them buy stuff in stores. So much for looking around for a salesman. Consumer research also shows that the first thing people do after leaving the gym is check their connections (email, Facebook) via their mobile device.

Industry Internals
Jeff Litvack with Associated Press showed a real iAd in his company’s news app, AP Mobile. Much cooler than we expected.

Jeremy Lockhorn of Razorfish reminded everyone that interactive is better. He showed an awesome example of an interactive ad from the 1950s and linked it to the consumption shift mobile has created.

Mobile Marketing Association’s Managing Director for North America Michael Becker claims that mobile is not just a channel, but a life necessity in many parts of the world. He showed some great examples of how mobile is integrated into life, death, sex, and spirituality.

P.S. Chasing the digital budget for a mobile or social carve out is nuts. Digital budgets are emaciated enough.

SMS/MMS Matters
What’s the biggest hold up for targeted SMS? Carrier costs. It seems that few consumers are excited about giving up one of their monthly texts in exchange for receiving a promo or coupon or anything from a company. Can’t say we disagree with them. As card-carrying members of Gen Y, we’ve yet to sign up for SMS/MMS promos…that is, knowingly sign up.

A challenge to the creatives: Give us a reason, and we’ll sign up!

Other Odds and Ends
Mobile flash. It’s the only reason I ever have to pull the battery on my Android phone. Come on Adobe! Can’t you figure this out EVER?

But batteries are not the biggest worry for Mike Bloxham of Ball State’s media lab. He says, “If battery life is the elephant in the room, then privacy is the T-Rex in the bed.” He says it’s time to understand consumer desire for comfort, and, presumably, time to change the bed sheets. Keep your T-Rex arms to yourself!

Toot Our Own Foghorn
We had an incredible awareness opportunity when the conference had to cancel our cocktail party because of high winds. So, to make nice, they gave Webtrends the sunset boat cruise!

Cage-match Mobile: It was full of VIP marketers, pundits and industry types all trapped on a boat. Big thanks to all the gods of wind: Aeolus, Fujin, Njord, Pazuzu, and that whole crew. Free Sperry Top-Siders for everyone next year!

P.S. Parting Shot
Lobster reviews? Dishing on the mac and cheese? Rumor had it there was a culinary spy crashing this conference, tweeting about the food he was inhaling at the buffet tables.

We didn’t see anyone doing (gulp) anything like that when (bite) we were there, but (chew, chew) the thought that anyone would go to the confer (crunch) ence just to tweet about the food is so (burp, urp) unprofessional.

Earlier this year, our execs traveled the country talking to analysts and press about our vision: the web is dead, and digital marketers’ attention need to grow beyond it to social and mobile. We borrowed the name of “The Splinternet” from Forrester’s Josh Bernhoff. This decentralized web concept is starting gain traction — in the past week, articles in Wired and Advertising Age have echoed along: “Is the web dead”?

Wired’s Cover Story: The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet.

Wired proclaims the web is dead.

The opening in Wired reminds me of the question Casey Carey asks about the Splinternet all the time: What do you really know about your digital marketing on the morning you wake up and realize more than half your brand interactions happen away from your website?

You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad — that’s one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times — three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix’s streaming service.

You’ve spent the day on the Internet — but not on the Web. And you are not alone.

This is not a trivial distinction. Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule. And it’s the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen). The fact that it’s easier for companies to make money on these platforms only cements the trend.

3 People I’d Ask about the Future of Digital: Chris Anderson, Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle

It’s brilliant, must-read stuff for modern digital marketers. To truly understand the hub-bub, you MUST check out the back-and-forth between Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson, Tim O’ Reilly and John Battelle about the technological and psychological underpinnings. Is it the ease-of-use of the screen? Is the real power in the information and business rules, rather than the programming languages that drive apps on any walled-garden platform? Here’s just a tip of the iceberg.

“It’s easy to focus on the apps themselves, down on the phone, and to forget just how many of the key apps are the same networked apps that we see on the web, just with a different front end.” -Tim O’ Reilly

Advertising Age Weighs In: Do We Still Need Websites?

In the CMO Strategy column in Advertising Age, John Blackwood asks:

So with all this relentless talk about Twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages and cool new apps, I have a serious and timely question. Do brand websites still matter?

Yes, I know — even asking this question is a bit digitally sacrilegious. Websites are to digital strategy as models are to fashion, but do we really need them?

I mean, didn’t things seem a tad curious during the World Cup when brands like Adidas and Nike actively promoted their Facebook page — not their primary website — at the end of their TV spots? Just this weekend, I saw a similar cross-feed to Facebook for Kohls. Talk about kicking the ball into a different goal.

Which Begs the Question: Are You Fishing Where the Fish Are?

Justin Kistner drew the line between all the conceptual talk and what it really means for marketers and CMOs. He asked, “Are you fishing where the fish are?” If people spend their time on apps and in walled gardens like Facebook, then shouldn’t marketing budgets follow?